1
1 SCRANTON CITY COUNCIL MEETING
2
3
4
5 HELD:
6
7 Tuesday, March 24, 2009
8
9 LOCATION:
10 Council Chambers
11 Scranton City Hall
12 340 North Washington Avenue
13 Scranton, Pennsylvania
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
CATHENE S. NARDOZZI, RPR - OFFICIAL COURT REPORTER
24
25
2
1
2 CITY OF SCRANTON COUNCIL:
3
4
MR. ROBERT MCGOFF, PRESIDENT
5
6 MS. JUDY GATELLI, VICE-PRESIDENT
7
MS. JANET E. EVANS
8
9 MS. SHERRY FANUCCI
10
MR. WILLIAM COURTRIGHT
11
12 MS. KAY GARVEY, CITY CLERK
13
MR. NEIL COOLICAN, ASSISTANT CITY CLERK
14
15 MR. JOHN WILLIAMS, SOLICITOR
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
3
1 (Pledge of Allegiance recited and
2 moment of reflection observed.)
3 MR. MCGOFF: Roll call, please?
4 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Evans.
5 MS. EVANS: Here.
6 MR. COOLICAN: Mrs. Gatelli.
7 MS. GATELLI: Here.
8 MR. COOLICAN: Ms. Fanucci.
9 MS. FANUCCI: Here.
10 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. Courtright.
11 MR. COURTRIGHT: Here.
12 MR. COOLICAN: Mr. McGoff.
13 MR. MCGOFF: Here. Dispense with
14 the reading of the minutes. Third Order,
15 please.
16 MS. GARVEY: 3-A. MINUTES OF THE
17 COMPOSITE PENSION BOARD MEETING HELD ON
18 FEBRUARY 25, 2009.
19 MR. MCGOFF: Are there any comments?
20 If not, received and filed.
21 MS. GARVEY: 3-B. CONTROLLER'S
22 REPORT FOR THE MONTH ENDING FEBRUARY 28,
23 2009.
24 MR. MCGOFF: Are there any comments?
25 If not, received and filed.
4
1 MS. GARVEY: 3-C. AGENDA FOR THE
2 CITY PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING HELD ON
3 MARCH 18, 2009.
4 MR. MCGOFF: Are there any comments?
5 If not, received and filed.
6 MS. GARVEY: That's it for Third
7 Order.
8 MR. MCGOFF: Thank you. In caucus
9 Mr. Renda had spoken to us about the audit
10 or investigation done at the Single Tax
11 Office and the report that many of you had
12 read about and perhaps seen on the website,
13 I noticed that Mr. McGovern and
14 Mrs. Vitali-Flynn are here this evening.
15 I'd like to, you know, suspend the rules at
16 this point in time and allow them to speak
17 and to answer any questions that council may
18 have, and also make it a note that Mr. Renda
19 is in council chambers as well. Pleas.
20 MS. VITALI-FLYNN: Good evening,
21 Council, taxpayers. My name is Marilyn
22 Vitali-Flynn. I am the tax collector for
23 the City of Scranton. I'm here tonight to
24 shed some light on the forensic
25 investigative report that was recently
5
1 discussed in the press. With me is
2 Solicitor John McGovern who will help answer
3 questions regarding the report, but before
4 John takes questions I would like to say
5 that since I have been appointed tax
6 collector I have been working hard to
7 implement some major changes to help address
8 the systematic and long-term problems that
9 have plagued the tax office for decades.
10 Some of these changes are broad in scope,
11 while others are simple changes in work flow
12 and checks and balances.
13 During this challenging economy,
14 keeping Scranton on solid financial ground
15 is more important than ever. I'm proud to
16 say that the tax collection office is
17 operating with much greater efficiency.
18 From the times are doors open in the morning
19 until we close at the end of the business
20 day, my staff and I are working to maximize
21 tax revenue. As a result, we have seen the
22 following revenue increases:
23 Earned income tax revenue has
24 increased 16.5 percent. Real estate tax
25 revenue has increased 8.5 percent. The
6
1 business privilege tax has increased
2 6.6 percent. Even though the local service
3 tax had been reduced by 37.9 percent, the
4 total increase in yearly revenue collected
5 by the office totals $4.7 million.
6 On a monthly basis we now report to
7 the city, the county, the school district
8 and Scranton City Council. We have
9 requested for a controller to be put in
10 place that we believe will help to continue
11 these drastic improvements and are asking
12 for the assistance of you, city council.
13 To sum up, our office is open and
14 dedicated to serving you. I or my staff
15 would be happy to answer any questions that
16 concerned citizens may have. Thank you.
17 And now John will take it from there if you
18 have questions.
19 MR. MCGOVERN: Good evening, Council.
20 My name is John McGovern, I'm the solicitor
21 for the Single Tax Office. I'm here tonight
22 to really talk about probably the two
23 primary issues that I'm sure the citizens
24 are concerned about. The first issue is the
25 fact that the city had budgeted $5.5 million
7
1 and if you attempt to read the report, of
2 course, no where in there do you see
3 $5.5 million. I would like to make it
4 clear, obviously, we were not part of the
5 caucus so I don't know what to be place with
6 Mr. Renda, but just to update everybody on
7 where we stand at this point, as I said, the
8 city had budgeted $5.5 million. If read the
9 report you don't see that number. However,
10 if you really got in the report and looked
11 at the details, on page 11 of the appendix
12 it talks about interest. The interest is
13 for 2007 and prior plus 2008 which has not
14 been distributed. The city's share
15 according to the report is $1,052.000.00,
16 $1,052,393.00.
17 Second, when you read the report it
18 talks about 888 Funds and 233 Funds. Those
19 funds are for intensive purposes when an
20 individual who is not a city resident works
21 at the -- noncity residents that work within
22 the city if they are local municipality does
23 not have a tax, a 1 percent tax, then the
24 city is under the law entitled to that
25 money.
8
1 Over the last three years since the
2 implementation of the new computer system
3 that money was never distributed. According
4 to the report, that money totaled
5 $2,446,000.00 and some change.
6 Now, as far as that money
7 specifically, the office already has
8 individuals confirming the codes that are in
9 basically the computer system. The problem
10 was that the system held the money there and
11 waited for somebody to do something with it.
12 It never got done. At this point, as I
13 said, those codes are being confirmed if.
14 If the codes are correct then the funds will
15 go to the city. If the codes are incorrect
16 because it should have been Abington Heights
17 or something like that the money will go
18 there.
19 Now, what's important with this
20 money is that it's not going to be
21 distributed in we are just going to deliver
22 a check for hypothetically $2,000,000 and
23 say, "Here is your 888 funds." When the
24 usual distribution process takes place it
25 will now be included in those funds so the
9
1 city won't get a check that's labeled "Here
2 is your 888 funds," it will be included as
3 part of the regular distribution process.
4 MS. GATELLI: Will you be able to
5 segregate that so we will know that it's the
6 old money coming back?
7 MR. MCGOFF: Well actually the
8 $2.4 million is just from the year 2005
9 through 2008 at this point. So, when you
10 say old money, there is two sets of old
11 money. There is a prior '05 money, which
12 I'll discuss in a few seconds, and then post
13 '05 money, but when it comes through we will
14 try to label it so that it's identified so
15 when Stu gets the funds he knows where it's
16 coming from but it won't, as I said, it
17 won't just be when you show up with one big
18 check and say, "Here you go."
19 It will be actually part of a
20 process because it's going to take time for
21 people to go through the system to check
22 those codes to confirm first that they are
23 correct or not.
24 MS. EVANS: So if I'm hearing you
25 correctly it will be part of our monthly
10
1 dispersement?
2 MR. MCGOFF: Yes. Yes. No you,
3 according to the report they had identified
4 $4,489,000.00 as what they call available
5 funds basically. As I just discussed, the
6 city is talking about 1.52 million in
7 interest, potentially 2.4 million in 888
8 funds and that leaves a balance of
9 $991,000.00 if you just do the simple math
10 in the report.
11 Now, that $991,000.00 is basically,
12 identified as pre 2005 money. What the
13 belief is that the same errors that were
14 occurring in '05, '06, '07 were occurring
15 prior to that period. The auditors
16 identified all of the way back to 1999 as
17 when this process or this problem in the
18 process started, so in theory again, the
19 city may be entitled to some of this
20 $991,000.00, so just on my math alone one,
21 two and a half, three and a half, so we are
22 really looking at about the city potentially
23 at the high end of this out of these funds
24 could get about 4 to 4 1/2 million dollars,
25 at the low end it could be in the
11
1 three million dollar range. The exact
2 totals will just, to be honest with you, we
3 will never know because, as I said, once the
4 system starts getting fixed and the codes
5 get fixed it's just going to start flowing
6 out on it's own.
7 Now, where the city is also going to
8 benefit from this is that this mistake
9 should not occur again. It's obviously been
10 identified, it's been a problem for many,
11 many years, unfortunately it was known by
12 some people, but it was never dealt with.
13 Now, with that being said, since it
14 should not occur again as they funds are
15 being accumulated throughout the year they
16 should start being dispersed at that point,
17 so what we are talking about here is
18 millions of dollars over two or three years,
19 well, if it's being handled when it's
20 supposed to in theory the city will see
21 thousands every month. Exactly what the
22 number is it's only going to based upon what
23 the collections are and handling of this,
24 but what will not happen again is that it
25 will not be allowed to just continue to grow
12
1 and grow and grow up until the point that
2 it's in the millions and millions of
3 dollars.
4 Now, that I believe at least
5 addresses the issue of the $5.5 million
6 question versus what does the report
7 actually say the city is going to get unless
8 somebody has a specific question that they
9 want to ask on that?
10 MS. FANUCCI: Stu, do you?
11 MR. RENDA: John, what about the --
12 in the work in progress, we talked about the
13 12 million, we segregated the seven and the
14 49, in the $7 million we talk about
15 nonresident wage tax --
16 MR. MCGOVERN: Correct.
17 MR. RENDA: -- of 2.9, could you just
18 address that for us? Is that -- is a piece
19 of that the 888 money or does it belong to
20 other municipalities?
21 MR. MCGOFF: That's exactly what I'm
22 talking about that we won't know on an
23 ongoing basis, it will just be a matter of
24 the city getting it. Once those funds start
25 to be coded properly and claims are made
13
1 against, basically what it works out to is a
2 default, the city is the default. When it
3 doesn't have to go anywhere else and we
4 don't have any evidence that it's supposed
5 to go anywhere else it goes to the city, so
6 included in that number is some additional
7 888 money or 233 money, I just can't tell
8 you exactly what the number is at this
9 point, but what happens is you have to keep
10 in mind what the nonresidents, the way the
11 process works is that tax office collects
12 the money during the year, they get payment
13 from the employers, they get estimated
14 payments in April, in June and September and
15 then in January, we don't get to the W-2's
16 until January or February. It's when those
17 W-2's come in that we are then getting the
18 exact information to code the money to send
19 it where it's supposed to go, so that two
20 point some million dollars which was there
21 at the end of '08 we are now getting that
22 information and it's now being put into the
23 system and coded, so the money is already
24 going where it's supposed to, but some of
25 that, yes, will end up being 888 money or
14
1 233 money and at some point as the
2 distribution process takes over the city
3 will say a share of that.
4 So ultimately, as I was saying
5 earlier, instead of the tax office holding
6 hundreds off thousands of dollars every year
7 that was the city's money, that money should
8 just start going out every year. So the
9 city should see a benefit in those funds
10 during this calendar year.
11 MS. FANUCCI: John, you obviously
12 know more than we do about this situation,
13 but are you satisfied with what came back
14 now, like, your understanding exactly where
15 we are because it seems to me there is so
16 many questions. I feel like we actually
17 lost out and we don't understand worse than
18 when we did when we first started this.
19 MR. MCGOFF: Right. I agree.
20 Everybody expected that on Friday there was
21 going to be a letter or something.
22 MS. FANUCCI: Yeah, really we did.
23 We expected to know.
24 MR. MCGOFF: That the city gets
25 actually "Y", and unfortunately because of
15
1 the way the computer system is setup it
2 doesn't work that way. The only thing I can
3 really add about this process is when the
4 report came out, and it just is background,
5 I am a CPA, also, and I do a lot of tax
6 work, so at least I have a background in
7 this, my concern as I was reading it, which
8 is the next issue that I'll get to, which is
9 when you do the simple math, and this goes
10 to the headline in the newspaper, "City Tax
11 Office missing $2 million," you don't have
12 to have an accounting background to sit
13 there and do the math and say, "We are
14 missing money, where is that money?"
15 So I did, as this process went along
16 and this information was slowly being fed to
17 us, you know, we were looking at it and we
18 were asking questions. I was going back to
19 the tax office employees, and I was trying
20 to just think the process through as it was
21 going along and I was able at least from the
22 report and from the information I received
23 to have a comfort level in what I was being
24 told, so I would say I was not -- in the end
25 result I agreed with it in the end.
16
1 Now, there is a lot of gray area in
2 the end result and everything and, no, it's
3 not, "Here is your share, here is your
4 share, here is your share and let's move
5 forward," because unfortunately that's not
6 what's there.
7 Part of the presentation that the
8 auditors did the other day, Mr. McGoff was
9 there, what everybody misunderstands is that
10 over the past ten years this office
11 collected in excess of a billion dollars,
12 with a "B". You know, think about it.
13 That's a lot of zeroes, and it's collecting
14 that from taxpayers. Me. These people
15 sitting out here. Some of these people are
16 paying $2, other people are paying thousands
17 of dollars, there is literally thousands and
18 thousands and thousands of records and
19 entries and checks and money is just coming
20 and going. It's just literally to find a
21 small thing it is the proverbial needle in a
22 haystack. It would be almost impossible to
23 go back and say, we are looking for a $22
24 that was paid to Mr. Smith during the year
25 of 2007. We are looking for one check in a
17
1 realm of quite possibly what could be close
2 to 100 checks that year. I mean, that's the
3 type of activity that goes through here, so
4 you have to keep that in mind.
5 I understand that millions of
6 dollars is a lot of money, it's a lot of
7 money to me, but if you look at in a
8 perspective of a billion dollars, you know,
9 a million dollars is less than 1/10th of 1
10 percent or something like that? You know,
11 from an accounting standpoint that could be
12 deemed immaterial. Now, they tried to do
13 everything that they could to document as
14 much as possible and with the idea a million
15 dollars is lot of money especially when a
16 city is distressed like this, I understand
17 that, but from my own standpoint in my
18 opinion, it's just my opinion and my
19 professional background, I was pretty
20 satisfied with what came back. I can't tell
21 you that I'm absolutely happy in the results
22 because as I'm going to discuss next it
23 points out that there is some serious
24 problems.
25 But, yes, I mean, the question the
18
1 the newspaper article says "Tax Office
2 missing two million," now, I may not agree
3 that the number was $2 million, but I can
4 confirmatively state that, yes, there is
5 money -- that 12.2 million dollars or
6 12.3 million that they identified at the end
7 the $12.3 million was there. When we talk
8 about money missing, it's not that some of
9 that 12.3 million is missing, it's that the
10 12.3 could have been 13.3 or 14.3 or some
11 number in-between there.
12 MS. FANUCCI: Because there was no
13 record of that at all?
14 MR. MCGOVERN: No. Now, this is --
15 this is the more technical part, or like I
16 refer to it the dirty little secret. The
17 scenario is that, yes, there is funds that
18 are unaccounted for, unaccounted for not in
19 the sense that somebody took the money and,
20 you know, somebody is alleging that a crime
21 took place, unaccounted for in an accounting
22 standpoint going back to the fact that there
23 was a billion dollars and hundreds of
24 thousands of checks coming and going and
25 back on forth. It gets to a point where
19
1 when you start trying to look for something
2 the time and effort yo find it just isn't
3 worth it. You wouldn't spend $100 to go
4 find $5. It just doesn't work.
5 Now, the big three issues identified
6 on page 23 of the report, and I believe the
7 -- or at least to quote the auditors, the
8 paragraph that starts, "Not surprisingly,
9 the sum," this goes back to, as I said,
10 anybody doing some simple math. If you read
11 through the report you start keeping track
12 of numbers you are going to realize that
13 when we have 4.9 million dollars available
14 at the end it's not -- it should be more.
15 That's the issue.
16 Now, the problem with that four
17 point -- or, I'm sorry, with the 4.9 not
18 being enough, that some of the issues that
19 that they have identified -- that the
20 auditors had identified -- excuse me for a
21 second, was a couple of issues, one being
22 what they call double refunds. There were
23 instances over the last so many years where
24 the tax office issued refunds, the same
25 refund on two occasions to multiple
20
1 individuals, and in some cases when it took
2 place it was many checks. It wasn't just
3 one check that accidently went out, it was
4 string of checks, you know, 100 checks or
5 200 checks that went out. Now, the problem
6 with that is you would have hoped that when
7 the taxpayers had received it they would
8 have said, "I got my --" I already got my
9 $22, you sent me over another check. "
10 Unfortunately, that didn't happen
11 very often. Now, that happened on numerous
12 occasions, but this is one of the situation
13 where you go back and try to look for it, to
14 start looking for $22 every time it's just
15 not cost effective.
16 Now, the way that that happened was
17 that they should have been using prenumbered
18 checks. I mean. It's a standard accounting
19 rule. You get a checkbook. It's got
20 numbers on it, it's that's simple. Not at
21 the tax office over the last so many years.
22 The computer assigned check numbers and, of
23 course, there was no safety check in the
24 computer system that wouldn't let you issue
25 the same check number twice, so what would
21
1 happen is we go back now and try to start
2 reconciling everything and we realize there
3 were two checks number 10005, and you say,
4 "Well, why?" And then you find out they
5 were the same people and they both went and
6 they were both cashed.
7 Now, when we found those or if we
8 find them, we obviously will now send a
9 letter to the taxpayers saying, "You were
10 paid twice, please send us back the money,"
11 and we've tried and in some cases the
12 taxpayers have sent the money in, but it's
13 not a situation where we can just sit down
14 and find all of these checks. Once again,
15 there is probably hundreds of thousands of
16 checks, so it's only in doing their work
17 where somebody calls in about a problem and
18 then all of a sudden the tax office realized
19 that issue was there and we can try to go
20 about and get that money.
21 Now, again, that's part of the
22 missing money. If we sent two checks out
23 for $50 we sent out $50 more than we should
24 have. Well, it wasn't that person's money,
25 it had could come from somewhere, well, it
22
1 came from the city is where it came from.
2 The second issue that they have
3 identified was what they call estimated tax
4 payments being paid to other municipalities.
5 There is a practice, as I explained, that we
6 don't get the W-2's until the end of the
7 year, but we are getting the money during
8 the year. What would happen is the office
9 would send out estimated payments to outline
10 municipalities because technically it's not
11 fair that we hold their money all year and
12 they have to wait until April to get one big
13 check, so we would send out a quarterly
14 payment almost like anybody that makes
15 estimated tax payments. They pay the
16 government.
17 Well, what would happen on some
18 occasions apparently, was the squeaky wheel
19 got the grease. If you called and
20 complained enough you would get a check.
21 The problem being that this check never made
22 it to the people in the office that were
23 supposed to be handling this to account for
24 it, so we have situations where checks were
25 sent out to outlying municipalities and it
23
1 was never recorded into the system.
2 Again, the problem now -- since I
3 just said that I want to point out something
4 very important here you have to understand,
5 the computer system bank accounts and the
6 bank statements were never reconciled. I
7 mean, does anybody here not -- somebody in
8 your family not reconcile their checking
9 account every month? I men, it's standard
10 practice.
11 MS. FANUCCI: So they were keeping
12 two different books and books and plus the
13 computer?
14 MR. MCGOFF: The computer was keeping
15 one set of records and doing one thing and
16 somebody else was keeping the bank
17 statements and keeping another balance, and
18 the auditors refer to that in the report, to
19 the point that when they finally, went to
20 even attempt to make a reconciliation the
21 books were showing about two or three
22 hundred thousands dollars more than what the
23 bank statements were showing at that time.
24 MS. FANUCCI: Well, let's go with the
25 books.
24
1 MR. MCGOFF: Yeah. Well,
2 unfortunately, the money wasn't there.
3 Now, the last issue which is
4 probably the most disappointing as a
5 taxpayer and resident of Scranton is the
6 most offending to me, is the fact that we
7 have employers and taxpayers in this city
8 that don't think that they have to pay taxes
9 for some reason. Now, the biggest example
10 here is we have employers, some of which for
11 the last ten years, have filed W-2's for
12 their employees, given us the information,
13 but just don't send us the money.
14 Now, the problem with that becomes
15 if those employees work and/or live anywhere
16 else, there was a policy implemented where
17 just, again, to pick on Abington Heights, if
18 the employee lived up there we would get the
19 W-2, we would send money to Abington
20 Heights, but we never got the money. We
21 never received it. I mean, it's that simple
22 so we are taking Scranton money and sending
23 it away. So the money I pay in is not going
24 to the city, it's going somewhere else
25 because we have a W-2.
25
1 The disappointing part, as I said,
2 apparently some people believe they don't
3 have to pay taxes and there has been a
4 culture around this city by some people over
5 that time period.
6 Now, since Marilyn has taken over
7 and I have been involved we have attempted
8 to collect, start to collect this money, so
9 this is another one of those issues where I
10 can guarantee you there will be money coming
11 in. We will get some of this money back and
12 when that money comes in it's only got one
13 place to go, to the city's share, but I can
14 tell you affirmatively I have filed some
15 private criminal complaints against
16 individual over the past few months, we have
17 made referrals to the District Attorney's
18 Office about this, it's my understanding at
19 least right now that there is two arrest
20 warrants out there for individuals that are
21 these type of individuals and we are just
22 trying to make it clear.
23 Believe me, we have given everybody
24 an opportunity, letters, certified letters,
25 phone calls, I don't take joy in threatening
26
1 to have people arrested but, you know, ten
2 years. Ten years you have been taking
3 somebody else's money and not turning it
4 over to where it was supposed to go. If it
5 was the IRS they would have had those people
6 a long time ago and we would have been
7 reading about them. In Scranton it didn't
8 work that way. I don't know when the last
9 time there was a private criminal complaint
10 filed. I don't know when the last time the
11 DA arrested somebody for this. All I know
12 is that we are trying to get the message out
13 there if you are one of these people and you
14 get a letter you better respond because if
15 you don't respond eventually somebody is
16 going to show up at your door.
17 So that is probably the biggest
18 chunk of this so-called missing money.
19 There has to literally be, you know, a
20 million dollars that's floating out there
21 that is just funds that people just didn't
22 pay. Now, just to add one more part to
23 that, just about this Scranton issue, these
24 very same people I can guarantee you they
25 paid the IRS and they paid the Department of
27
1 Revenue, they just didn't pay us, so0.
2 MS. GATELLI: Is that public record
3 of who didn't pay? Like I see today in the
4 paper there is federal tax liens in it and
5 it lists the people and what they owe.
6 MR. MCGOVERN: That's our problem.
7 In order to put a lien in the paper, I mean
8 it has -- in order for something to become
9 public record there is whole process it has
10 to go through, so like I can't stand here
11 and say, you know, here is list of people
12 that just decide they are not going to do
13 it. The only way I can do that is to either
14 go after them civilly or something criminal
15 happened and once there is something
16 criminal you could read the private criminal
17 complaint, you could read the DA arrest
18 warrant, that type of thing, so you can get
19 the information that way, but until it
20 happens -- now, keep in mind we have been
21 there a year. These things take time, so we
22 are still at the beginning of this,
23 unfortunately, there is no carry over from
24 the previous whatever number of years.
25 Again, I'm looking at people that haven't
28
1 paid for ten years and saying how could this
2 go on, how can --
3 MS. EVANS: People who are city
4 residents who worked outside of the city?
5 MR. MCGOFF: That's a whole -- that's
6 a whole another -- that's a whole other
7 argument.
8 MS. EVANS: Oh, the businesses who
9 have had --
10 MR. MCGOFF: I'm specifically talking
11 about businesses within the city who are
12 withholding money from their employees --
13 MS. EVANS: And kept the money.
14 MR. MCGOFF: And kept the money, yes.
15 MS. EVANS: Rather than turning it
16 over.
17 MR. MCGOFF: Yes.
18 MS. EVANS: Plus we also have, let's
19 say, individuals who, as I said, would
20 reside within the city, work outside of the
21 city --
22 MR. MCGOFF: Yes.
23 MS. EVANS: -- and never paid wage
24 taxes.
25 MR. MCGOFF: Correct.
29
1 MS. EVANS: And as --
2 MR. MCGOFF: Some of which who have
3 voted in this city, some of which have used
4 a lot of other services of this city --
5 MS. EVANS: Yes.
6 MR. MCGOFF: -- but which claim they
7 don't live here.
8 MS. EVANS: Yes.
9 MR. MCGOFF: And then we are aware of
10 some of those people and I have attempted or
11 are attempting to collect the money from
12 those people --
13 MS. EVANS: And as for the people who
14 would have received double or triple refunds
15 are they being pursued legally?
16 MR. MCGOFF: If, in fact, we can
17 identify them then, yes, the practice is to
18 send them a letter. Now, of course we have
19 a situation where if it happened six years
20 ago we may not be able to collect it because
21 of statute of limitations issues and things
22 like that.
23 MS. EVANS: Yes.
24 MR. MCGOFF: But if it's identified
25 we are more than willing to try to -- to try
30
1 to recoup that money.
2 MS. EVANS: And then my other
3 concern though, and perhaps you were leading
4 up to it, is the fact that allegedly the tax
5 office was using tax monies, tax dollars, if
6 you will, in their operating budget? In
7 other words, they exceeded their operating
8 budget and were using tax dollars to
9 supplement, let's say, what they needed for
10 their operations?
11 MR. MCGOFF: Correct.
12 MS. EVANS: And what will be done
13 about that?
14 MR. MCGOFF: Well, there is an
15 exhibit in the back -- in the, I believe
16 it's -- not the appendix, but the exhibits
17 in which it shows the thing -- the one thing
18 I would like to point out to that if you
19 look at the years 2008 is of all of the
20 years it just explodes. Now, my position on
21 that is because of transparency. Everything
22 that is being spent is being put into that
23 account. The largest, just so you
24 understand, the largest number one item is
25 that computer system and the computer
31
1 maintenance company. It's in the hundredes
2 -- it's thousands upon thousands, and when I
3 say thousands not one or two thousand it is?
4 MS. VITALI-FLYNN: $30,000 a month.
5 MR. MCGOFF: $30,000 here, $40,000
6 there. If we are spending that kind of
7 money on the computer system now how is that
8 it -- where did it come from? You know,
9 where was it in the prior year? So there
10 was a concern from the auditors that the
11 prior years that the funds were put
12 somewhere else. In other words, the checks
13 were recorded somewhere else so that they
14 are not on above the line basically. So I
15 will say, yes, the last year there I think
16 it was $180,000 over budget last year is
17 what it was. When you really get into those
18 numbers you are going to find out that the
19 largest majority of that number is the
20 computers. If we had to spend that kind of
21 money on a computer system last year, and my
22 understanding is nothing changed adverse to
23 the prior years then where are those --
24 where is the line item on those?
25 So one of the other items just to
32
1 keep in mind, too, is we sent out 90,000
2 property tax bills a year, plus the S-1's
3 and the A-1's, they cost money, so I believe
4 those bills collectively are 60, 70,000
5 dollars, so if you look at the universe and
6 say, hey, your operating budget is $280,000,
7 if we are spending 80 on sending out bills,
8 the property tax bills and all of that kind
9 of stuff, and we are spending between 150 to
10 200,000 dollars on the computer system there
11 is not much left in budget, so anything
12 else, legal fees I think there were 16
13 grievances that we had to deal with when we
14 took over, there were legal bills that kept
15 coming in for those, so if you were to go
16 back and start looking, again, this is the
17 issue of trying to find it, if you can find
18 it and it was recategorized then, yes, we
19 believe those numbers would change in the
20 prior years, but I can only say look at '08
21 and as far as I'm concerned or as far I'm
22 aware I believe everything that should have
23 been on that line was on that line, and all
24 of a sudden we are 100 and some thousand
25 dollars over budget, so something took place
33
1 in the early years.
2 Now, to answer your questions is
3 there anything we can do with that, I don't
4 know where you get the money from. It's,
5 you know, the tax office. It's not like
6 they're a taxpayer and you can say give us
7 back our money. I understand the city can
8 attempt to say "give us back our money," but
9 the way the process works the city pays half
10 the wages --
11 MS. EVANS: The school district.
12 MR. MCGOFF: The school district pays
13 half, the city pays a good portion of the
14 operating budget to 280, the school
15 district, the county pays for the building
16 and stuff like that, so if we're over budget
17 the answer should have been we should have
18 just came and said, hey, we need another
19 $50,000 from each of you because this is
20 where the numbers are, but I would imagine
21 that this is probably the first time that
22 you are being told that the computer system
23 cost $150, $200,000 a year to operate alone.
24 MS. FANUCCI: And then continue the
25 problem.
34
1 MR. MCGOVERN: Yes.
2 MS. FANUCCI: After it got there it
3 didn't straighten anything out.
4 MR. MCGOFF: Two very quick
5 questions, do we continue to use the
6 commingled account?
7 MR. MCGOVERN: At this point we have
8 absolutely -- that -- just so everybody
9 understands, there was 17 bank accounts in
10 this office at the end of 2004. The money
11 would come in and it would be put into a
12 segregated account. In the beginning of '05
13 it was all dumped into one account which
14 caused this issue of not being able to find
15 anything or to identify anything because
16 there was just too much going on in the one
17 account.
18 MS. EVANS: Why did it occur though,
19 was that a human decision, is that something
20 that was tied into the computer system, how
21 does one go from what seems reasonable to
22 have 17 accounts to the merger of so many to
23 a point where nothing is distinguishable?
24 MR. MCGOVERN: There was a consultant
25 report that was prepared before the computer
35
1 system that went into effect and I believe
2 that's where the proposal came and then it
3 was just put into place and the computer
4 system was put into place. The problem is
5 the auditor said great idea, poor
6 implementation is what happened.
7 Now, to answer Mr. McGoff's question
8 can we get out of this, I think the one
9 thing, and Marilyn had talked about we --
10 excuse the use of a term we need a
11 controller in the office, a tax professional
12 -- I'm sorry, accounting professional. Once
13 that type of person is in place with this
14 accounting system once they have a grasp of
15 it the one thing at least immediately what
16 we can do or should do is segregate the
17 operating budget out of it because that
18 should be -- that should never have been
19 included in there and there should never
20 have been a reason why taxpayer funds are
21 being commingled with the tax office funds.
22 That is something simple and that's
23 relatively an easy thing to do once we have
24 somebody there from an accounting
25 perspective.
36
1 MR. MCGOFF: Second question, do we
2 continue to use the same computer program
3 and do we intend to continue to use that
4 into the future?
5 MR. MCGOVERN: At this point you
6 spent a lot of money on it and it's -- to
7 throw it away would be would probably be
8 ashame. The issue --
9 MR. MCGOFF: But if it doesn't work.
10 MR. MCGOVERN: Well, the issue has
11 never been that the computer system hasn't
12 worked the people aren't trained and one of
13 the points that they make in that audit
14 report is from day one when they accounts
15 were set up there should have been two sets
16 of entries, a "due to" on one side and "due
17 from" on the other. From day one when they
18 set this thing up they forget to make the
19 second set of entries which threw the books
20 off $4 million on day one, so there
21 immediately was a problem, and again, it's
22 human error, it wasn't system error. If
23 somebody understood what they were doing
24 then they would have been fine.
25 MR. MCGOFF: Thank you.
37
1 MS. EVANS: But let us say
2 hypothetically successful implementation of
3 the computer system will you continue to
4 keep a hard copy as well or are you going to
5 be solely reliant upon the computer program?
6 MR. MCGOVERN: When you say a hard
7 copy, a hard copy of what?
8 MS. EVANS: Your records, your
9 accounts, etcetera.
10 MR. MCGOVERN: Well, there always
11 hard company ice of the bank statements.
12 They are always there, again, the problem is
13 they weren't being reconciled with the
14 computer system. There should always be
15 hard copies of the W-2's, the tax returns,
16 the checks, all of those things. They are
17 there, but again, in referencing the checks
18 they come back in a box. They don't come
19 back in an envelope with a hundred in there,
20 they come back in a box with thousands and
21 thousands. Unless you were really -- unless
22 you knew you were doing you wouldn't have
23 any idea what's there. So those records are
24 always available, the problem becomes trying
25 to find what you are missing.
38
1 It's just, again, we are looking at
2 three and a half years to four years using
3 this computer system now it's not like we
4 had 30 days, and that's -- just to be quick,
5 one of the other things is a lot of these
6 problems that were occurring could have been
7 discovered on a daily basis by running an
8 exception report, but it just wasn't done
9 so, instead of having five mistakes made the
10 previous day that could have been fixed we
11 have, you know, 15,000 for four years
12 because nobody was ever looking at that
13 problem. They knew it was there, but nobody
14 ever did anything about it.
15 MS. EVANS: Now, the city has
16 allocated in the 2009 budget additional
17 funds for an audit of the Single Tax Office
18 that, as you know, should have been
19 performed by law annually.
20 MR. MCGOVERN: Yes.
21 MS. EVANS: And, of course, it hasn't
22 occurred, I'm not exactly sure why, but in
23 an effort to resolve that situation council
24 did provide funding for such. Now, my
25 question to you is at the point at which --
39
1 at this juncture, in other words, are we
2 going to experience difficulty conducting,
3 let us say, you know, an audit this year?
4 MR. MCGOFF: At this point in time
5 any accountant that comes in there will not
6 be able to perform a gap or a guess or any
7 other kind of audit. It just -- the records
8 are still in that much disarray. That's the
9 point about an accounting professional.
10 Ideally, if we can get somebody in there to
11 start cleaning it up it gives them until the
12 end of the year to get it cleaned up, so
13 when an auditor comes in early next year
14 they are able to look at the books and
15 records, unlike Mr. Marks attempted to do
16 for three years and kept saying, "There's a
17 problem here, there's a problem here,
18 there's a problem here," and it never
19 changed. If we can get those problems fixed
20 in theory they should be able to come in and
21 there would be something for them to audit
22 at that point, but at this point there is
23 nothing there for somebody to audit because
24 the information on the computer system
25 doesn't completely reflect what's actually
40
1 taking place.
2 MS. GATELLI: Are you going to offer
3 training for the employees?
4 MS. VITALI-FLYNN: We already started
5 that.
6 MR. MCGOVERN: Yeah. Marilyn has
7 just done that. She has had a few of them
8 to the computer classes with the computer
9 company. Obviously they are aware of some
10 of these issues and as they are identified,
11 and a lot of them were identified by the
12 auditors when they were doing this
13 investigation, they were putting fixes in
14 place at that point, so they were already
15 saying, "Hey, if you just do it this way you
16 don't have this problem anymore."
17 So some of those fixes are in place,
18 others will be in place and as we move
19 forward, you know, hopefully at the end of
20 this year this thing is in good enough shape
21 that somebody can come in and render an
22 opinion.
23 MS. EVANS: Was there no training
24 offered in 2005?
25 MR. MCGOVERN: My upstanding it was
41
1 very limited.
2 MS. VITALI-FLYNN: It was a one-day
3 training.
4 MR. MCGOVERN: That's one of the
5 other issues, employees that had worked for
6 there for many, many years the new computer
7 system comes in they were just absolutely
8 frustrated and retired, that was it. So the
9 people that knew how things were supposed to
10 be going once the computer system came in
11 they just threw up their hands and said
12 enough of this and they left.
13 MR. MCGOFF: Thank you. Any other
14 questions?
15 MS. GATELLI: No, but I know some of
16 us have some more questions. I myself
17 wasn't able to pull the report off of my
18 computer, so I can only get bits and pieces
19 of report and if we have other questions we
20 may ask you to come back again.
21 MR. MCGOVERN: Okay, and if somebody
22 specifically has a question or a problem
23 Marilyn is always available, I won't say I'm
24 always available, but I will try to make
25 myself available and we can hopefully
42
1 address some of the issues.
2 MS. EVANS: Will we then not receive
3 the entirety of what is due to the city
4 during the 2009 budget year? In other
5 words, this could be ongoing beyond 2009?
6 I'm not talking become now our traditional
7 distributions, I'm talking about these areas
8 of the 888 account, the interest, etcetera.
9 MR. MCGOVERN: The goal would be that
10 this is resolved during 2009 and then at the
11 end of 2009 whatever money that would have
12 accumulated in an 888 account or 233 account
13 if it's not distributed at least it's
14 identified so the city knows the next month
15 that they are getting it, that type of
16 thing, so ideally it could be much better
17 reporting and ideally this money will be
18 distributed sooner than later. Like, the
19 interest money should be any kind of
20 question. We have the numbers identified,
21 you know, at some point there is going to be
22 an interest check, so we don't desire to
23 have this problem occur again.
24 MS. FANUCCI: Thank you.
25 MR. MCGOFF: I want to thank you for
43
1 coming tonight, Mrs. Vitali-Flynn and Mr.
2 McGovern. I appreciate your presence.
3 Mr. Renda, thank you, also, and the
4 information provided hopefully will help us
5 in making decisions into the future, and
6 again, if questions do arise they certainly
7 we will send them to you and thank again.
8 Have a good night. Thank you.
9 MR. MCGOVERN: Have a good night.
10 Thank you.
11 MS. VITALI-FLYNN: Thank you.
12 MR. MCGOFF: Any announcements from
13 council?
14 MS. EVANS: Yes. Please remember in
15 your prayers all those who have died this
16 past week, particularly Thomas F. Barrett,
17 Sr., a retired lieutenant in the Scranton
18 fire department whose son, Tom Barrett,
19 recently retired from the city controller's
20 office and all his dear family members and
21 friends he leaves behind.
22 A bake sale and basket raffle will
23 be held on Saturday, April 4, before and
24 after the 4:00 mass and on Sunday, April 5,
25 before and after the 11:00 mass at Saints
44
1 Peter and Paul Church Hall, 1309 West Locust
2 Street in West Scranton.
3 And Fetching Grooming Salon on
4 Boulevard Avenue in Greenridge will be
5 offering Easter pet photos on Saturday,
6 March 28 and Sunday March 29 from 1 to 4
7 p.m. The 5 by 7 photo is $5 and other sizes
8 will be available. The photos will also be
9 taken by request through this week as well
10 as the following week. Proceeds will be
11 used to purchase canine oxygen masks for
12 local fire departments. The masks come in
13 three sizes and fit various animals. Each
14 mask costs $50 and will be used for dogs
15 caught in fires or rescue situations.
16 Marilyn Reese, owner of Fetching Grooming
17 Salon, hopes to fully equip the Scranton
18 Fire Department which she says has only one
19 such mask as well as other county fire
20 departments.
21 Now, I know I have two dogs and from
22 going to go door throughout the years in our
23 city I know that countless city residents
24 are dog owners and cat owners, and I'm sure
25 that none of us wants to see any animal lost
45
1 to a fire, so please support this very
2 worthy cause to protect all of our pets.
3 And that's all.
4 MR. MCGOFF: Mrs. Gatelli?
5 MS. GATELLI: This is the final week
6 for the Ryan Mihalchicz memorial pasta
7 dinner announcement, it is Sunday the 29th
8 from 1 to 8 at Novak's Food and Spirts on
9 Boulevard Avenue. Also this Sunday at St.
10 Francis Church, which is my parish, from
11 11:30 to 4:00 there will be a polenta and
12 meatballs or rigatoni and meatballs and
13 adults are $8.50 sponsored by the Altar and
14 Rosary Society.
15 The West Side Invader Dugout Club is
16 having a night at the races on Saturday
17 April 18, at 7:00 at Keyser Valley Community
18 Center. You can purchase a horse and have
19 some fun and the proceeds will benefit the
20 West Scranton baseball team.
21 Also, friends of the Scranton
22 Knight's football team are having a night at
23 the races on the same night, April 18 at the
24 Holy Rosary Center from 7 to 11 and theirs
25 is for the football team of Scranton High
46
1 School.
2 Just a few other announcements: The
3 lights are fixed at the Spruce Street
4 Complex. The sink hole on West Market
5 Street was investigated and it is a mine
6 subsidence, so it will be fixed by the
7 Office of Surface Mines in Wilkes-Barre and
8 temporarily there is a metal plate over that
9 opening.
10 On the week of April 16 the city
11 will be sponsoring a spring clean up. If
12 there is any neighborhood associations that
13 would like to get involved they can please
14 contact me, and the one in South Side will
15 be on April 18 and 19 and we are doing it as
16 a sponsorship of the Earth Diday clean up,
17 so anyone else, I believe that the North
18 Scranton is doing it up at Rockwell Park on
19 that particular week, but anyone else
20 interested in doing a clean up with
21 dumpsters please call me through the Office
22 of City Council and we can make some
23 arrangements with the DPW, and that's all I
24 have. Thank you.
25 MR. COURTRIGHT: Mr. McGoff, I ask
47
1 you to just give me a little leeway on this,
2 we have seen in the paper in the last week
3 or so and I have been inundated with calls
4 and people coming up to me about fire
5 stations, whether they will be closed, are
6 we going to be moving engine companies, are
7 we going to be moving trucks out, and not to
8 take the side of administration, not to take
9 the side of the firefighters, but to take
10 the side of the residents, they are the ones
11 that are going to affected by any changes,
12 so I would ask if council would agree to
13 this that we would send a letter to Director
14 Hayes and ask him if he can give us the plan
15 on what they plan on doing with the fire
16 department, who is the architect of this
17 plan, who is the designer, who is coming up
18 with all of these moves and whoever that is
19 what their qualifications are, were there
20 any studies done?
21 MS. EVANS: Mr. Courtright, last week
22 when you were absent we sent a letter to the
23 mayor requesting that information.
24 MR. COURTRIGHT: Okay.
25 MS. EVANS: But we did not receive a
48
1 response from him. That was sent to him I
2 believe March 17.
3 MR. COURTRIGHT: My thought is this
4 if -- certainly if you are going to make any
5 changes it's got to be closely looked at
6 because, you know, one life lost is one too
7 many. I'm not saying that there could not
8 be improvements, I'm sure there could be
9 improvements, but I'm just real concerned
10 about how we are taking these decisions, who
11 is making these decisions and what
12 information they we are getting to make
13 these decisions, so if you send all of that
14 to the mayor and we got no response maybe we
15 could send it to Director Hayes, but I'd
16 like to know who is making these decisions
17 and what their qualifications are. I think
18 if we going to make big changes like that I
19 would be in favor of seeing some kind of
20 professional study done to tell us -- no
21 one, I don't think there is anyone in the
22 city that wants the fire house closed that's
23 near their house. Nobody wants that; right?
24 MS. FANUCCI: But I also want to know
25 where this even came from. Are though
49
1 closing fire houses?
2 MS. GATELLI: I spoke to the mayor
3 because I was concerned about especially my
4 fire house.
5 MS. FANUCCI: Right.
6 MS. GATELLI: You know, it's the
7 only one in South Scranton and I know the
8 one in North Scranton is the only one over
9 there and we fought a long time for that
10 firehouse for many years. Mr. Gervasi knows
11 that, we have 10,000 names and I'll bring
12 them to the mayor's office if I have to, but
13 he told me that no firehouses were closing.
14 MS. EVANS: Well, engine companies
15 apparently --
16 MR. COURTRIGHT: Here's my --
17 Ms. Evans: But first he -- I believe
18 what happened was an announcement was made
19 at city council last week --
20 MS. FANUCCI: And the day of the
21 signs went up so I'm wondering where all of
22 this information came from. There's signs
23 all over the place.
24 MS. EVANS: -- that they were going
25 to close and then thereafter the mayor was
50
1 quoted as saying, "That wasn't true," and
2 then another article came out in the
3 newspaper I believe the following day
4 announcing that engine companies. There
5 would be a difference in staffing followed
6 by the closing of two engine companies, one
7 at headquarters downtown and one on Main
8 Avenue --
9 MS. FANUCCI: Where did that --
10 MS. EVANS: -- across from --
11 MR. MCGOFF: Mr. Courtright did have
12 the floor opinion.
13 MS. FANUCCI: Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah,
14 that always happens to you. Sorry. Sorry,
15 Bill.
16 MR. COURTRIGHT: My mother told me I
17 had to be a gentleman to you ladies so --
18 here is my concern, okay, and if it's just
19 engine companies then it's just trucks, that
20 might sound fine to some, but these people
21 have specific jobs when they get to there.
22 Somebody has got to lay the line down and
23 somebody has got to, you know, hook into the
24 fire hydrant, there is so many different
25 things, and to a lay person, oh, the
51
1 firehouse is still open. Well, yeah, but
2 who is in that firehouse and what's in that
3 firehouse and who is arriving on scene and
4 who is doing what? And I don't claim to be
5 an expert in that so I'm not going to stand
6 here or sit here and say that, but who is
7 making those decisions? I would hope it's
8 an expert and that's what I would like to
9 see, where that's coming from.
10 I'm not saying you can't make
11 changes, I don't think anybody is saying you
12 can't improve, but let's face it, fires take
13 lives, firefighters save lives, one life
14 would be too many, so I just would really
15 think that this is something that we should
16 be made aware of and if it's not true then
17 none of these engine companies are moving,
18 none of these truck companies are moving and
19 tell us that it's not true, but let's not
20 believe just the newspaper, no offense to
21 the newspaper people, and that's it. I'm
22 done. Thank you.
23 MR. MCGOFF: Thank you,
24 Mr. Courtright. Prior to citizens'
25 participation I would like to read a letter
52
1 that was received this past week. It's,
2 "Dear Scranton City Council, I am writing
3 this letter in response to the March 16,
4 2009, city council meeting and to provide
5 accuracy to the operations of my company,
6 Danielle and Company, Incorporated, and my
7 credentials both personally and
8 professionally.
9 Danielle and Company is a
10 manufacturer of contemporary and natural and
11 organic beauty care products, namely, soaps,
12 body washes, lotions, candles and lip balms.
13 All of our products are made with the purest
14 ingredients to nourish the skin, enhance the
15 senses and protect the earth. I started my
16 company in my home and create my products
17 based on the empirical data that shows the
18 effectiveness of scents on our well-being.
19 To date, my company has grown to
20 occupy a 10,000-square foot factory in
21 Scranton. All of our products are handmade
22 in our facility and we are a family-owned
23 and operated business with all employees
24 being born and raised in Northeastern
25 Pennsylvania.
53
1 We manufacture over 85 different
2 products and they are sold to over 100 spas,
3 boutiques and health food stores in the
4 United States, Canada and Japan with premier
5 locations at Marriott Hotel and Spa, The
6 Ritz Carlton Spa in Florida and many
7 Hallmark stores. We also sell our products
8 at our showroom on Adams Avenue and on-line
9 at www.danielleandcompany.com. Our products
10 have been sold on QVC for Earth Day, have
11 been featured in over 20 national magazines.
12 We are also sold at drugstore.com and
13 amazon.com, MSN.com and provided to shops
14 globally and were chosen to be included in
15 the coveted gift bags at the Billboard Music
16 Awards.
17 Over 40 high profile celebrities
18 have also lathered up in our products, some
19 on that list include, Tony Bennett, Janet
20 Jackson, Paula Abdul, Courtney Love, Howie
21 Mandell.
22 In regards to my personal and
23 professional credentials, I am a recipient
24 of the many academic and professional awards
25 including Young Entrepreneur of the year by
54
1 the Bank of America, the top 20 under 40
2 business leaders in Northeastern,
3 Pennsylvania, Small Business Spotlight
4 Award, top 40 in the 40 successful
5 individuals in Northeast Pennsylvania, two
6 time winner of the pride and progress award
7 for interior design by the Scranton Chamber,
8 I have received the United States Senate
9 Award from Entrepreneurship from Senator
10 Arlen Spector and have been awarded
11 nationally for the best organic product and
12 best in show of the New York International
13 gift show and was named top 20 people to
14 know in the global cosmetic industry by GCI
15 magazine.
16 I have presented research at
17 national psychological conventions and I was
18 an invited panelist in alternative medicine
19 magazine. I am also certified in herbal
20 techniques from the il Laboratorio dell'
21 Erborista in Pitigliano, Tuscany, Italy.
22 I have already received a $30,000
23 innovate research grant from the
24 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in partnership
25 with Marywood University to further research
55
1 and commercialize and customize a scent
2 delivery system and I'm working with
3 Pennsylvania farmers to provide the raw
4 materials we need for our products and to
5 sustain Pennsylvania agriculture. We are
6 also a PA preferred vendor with the
7 Pennsylvania department of ago are culture.
8 I have been an invited lecturer at
9 Keystone College, Misericordia University,
10 the University of Scranton, Wall Street West
11 and Economics Pennsylvania, the entrepreneur
12 institute, as well as serving as an adjunct
13 faculty member at Marywood University.
14 I am involved with a number of
15 community organizations including the Great
16 Valley Technology Alliance Board, Scranton
17 Business Alliance, Marywood University
18 Alumni Council, Leadership of Lackawanna
19 County, and am an ambassador to the
20 Lackawanna Heritage Valley program. I was
21 also part of a team to help raise $20,000
22 for the Children's Advocacy Center in
23 Scranton.
24 I am a national board certified
25 counselor and have been in the field of
56
1 psychology and human development for eight
2 years. I have obtained a BA in Psychology
3 from Arabian College and a MA in mental
4 health counseling from Marywood University
5 and am currently pursuing a doctoral degree
6 in human development from Marywood.
7 In closing, my company has and will
8 continue to create jobs in the area. We
9 brought life to a blighted plot on Adams
10 Avenue, we are bringing in revenues to
11 increase the tax base for Scranton that
12 support the global economy and we are
13 keeping manufacturing alive in Scranton. We
14 are seen as leaders in both the local
15 communities and national and green and eco
16 friendly movement and are educating local
17 citizens weekly classes at our facility.
18 We invite anyone to come by our
19 facility and receive a personal tour and see
20 firsthand how we are an asset to the City of
21 Scranton and it's citizens. I would be
22 happy to show our citizens the value that we
23 bring to Scranton and how as a young female
24 entrepreneur I chose to stay here because I
25 believe in the people and resources of
57
1 Northeastern Pennsylvania.
2 I have also reviewed the comments
3 made by speaker at the council meeting and
4 have responded and have provided a response
5 to his false and untrue accusations. Number
6 one, we are not doing aromatherapy as a
7 practice at Danielle and Company and have
8 never made that claim. We have are a
9 manufacturing of bath and body care
10 products. We make products that have
11 specific scents in them and have shown to
12 have an effect on well-being.
13 I am not an aromatherapist and never
14 claimed to be. There is no information on
15 my website that substantiates this false
16 accusation. I have never said that I am
17 trained in aromatherapy and will never be
18 trained in aromatherapy therapy because I do
19 not study aromatherapy. I study aromacology
20 and that is the psychology of scent. I have
21 studied the field of psychology since 2000
22 and have received a bachelor and master's
23 degree. I am trained in certified in
24 psychology.
25 I am trained as a cognitive
58
1 behavioral therapist and am a board
2 certified counselor," she gives the
3 certification number. "Although I am
4 concerned qualified to be able to practice
5 counseling, psychotherapy and deal with
6 people who have emotional problems, I am not
7 practicing as a therapist. I am devoted to
8 my business and my mental program. I am not
9 offering aromatherapy sessions or cognitive
10 behavioral sessions at my factory and this
11 is not a part of my business.
12 Danielle and Company is not a
13 wellness program and never claims to be. My
14 credentials are with the universities I
15 attended and the National Board of Certified
16 Counselors. I am not a psychologist and
17 never claim to be one, you need a doctoral
18 degree to be a psychologist. I do not have
19 a doctoral degree at this time.
20 The American Psychological
21 Association is for psychologists and I am
22 not a psychologist and never claimed to be.
23 I am not going to hurt a person's emotional
24 or physical life. On the contrary, I am
25 trained and certified to counsel people in
59
1 the time of need. I must make this point
2 clear. Although, I am able to be a
3 therapist, I am not practicing. Myself and
4 my company are greatly shocked and saddened
5 by the untrue and false accusations made by
6 the speaker. I firmly believe he is
7 misinformed. I have now turned the matter
8 over to my attorneys to ensure my good name
9 and legal rights are protected. Sincerely,
10 Danielle K. Flemming, founder and CEO of
11 Danielle and Company."
12 Thank you for bearing with me. In a
13 reply to me she said that the speaker had a
14 five minutes to speak and she would like her
15 five minutes as well.
16 (Whereupon there were comments from
17 the audience.
18 MR. MCGOFF: Excuse me. Citizens'
19 participation. Dave Schreiber.
20 MR. SCHREIBER: Good evening,
21 Council. My name is Dave Schreiber, I'm
22 president of the Scranton firefighters'
23 union and also a city resident. Councilman
24 Courtright brought up a point tonight that
25 obviously I wanted to touch upon. There
60
1 seems to be some confusion of what's going
2 on. The mayor has been on record several
3 times, 8-31-08 he is on record stating that
4 he wants to close three to four firehouses.
5 He is also on record reductions in the fire
6 department. We understand that, obviously,
7 things are changing for us. That's not why
8 I'm here. I'm here to educate what some of
9 these proposed cuts are going to be.
10 I was in a meeting two weeks ago
11 when the proposal for Engine 9 and Engine 4
12 were introduced. Director Hayes was there,
13 Chief Davis was there, and Stu Renda. They
14 are looking at closing Engine 4 in this
15 building next door and Engine 9 over in
16 Tripps Park and combining it into a quint
17 unit which is one combined unit. It's a
18 failed experiment from the 70's. It was
19 tried out in several communities, never
20 worked out. That's a vehicle that just you
21 are trying to get too much out of one
22 vehicle, it doesn't work.
23 In basic terms what we need to
24 understand is it's really semantics to say
25 I'm not closing the firehouse, you are
61
1 closing the fire engine. That engine has a
2 specific job just like the fire truck has a
3 specific job. In a nutshell, you could say
4 Army and Navy, the two combined to do an
5 overall task, but each individual unit has a
6 completely different perspective and
7 assignment. The engine company brings water
8 to the fire, pulls the line off, the crew
9 members go in to start extinguishing. The
10 truck company opens up, starts ventilating.
11 Now, just a room and contents fire
12 you are dealing with temperatures of 2000
13 degrees at the ceiling height. Down near
14 the floor possibly up to 200 degrees, that's
15 why when you go in you need to open up a
16 roof, open up windows, the rescue crew and
17 sometimes the truck crews we are trying to
18 find are victims, we are doing the search.
19 We always assume there is a potential victim
20 in the house.
21 All of these tasks, and I'm being
22 very oversimplified with this, these tasks
23 needs to be done in unison. The second two
24 engine company that's coming in we have one
25 engine company in front of the building
62
1 putting a line on the fire. The second two
2 engine comes in to bring water to that first
3 engine company and to provide back up lines.
4 If we entertain this concept of a quint or
5 eliminate, even if they not calling it a
6 quint, just a truck company at headquarters
7 and a truck company over in West Side at --
8 over in the 1,000 block of North Main Avenue
9 there is not engine companies there, and
10 it's really folly to go with a concept like
11 that. These companies are the heart of the
12 city, the West Side and in Central City.
13 I myself live on Leggett Street up
14 in North end off of Rockwell Avenue and to
15 put it in perspective from my house, we have
16 a bridge up there that's been a three ton
17 limit for, God, I have no -- I don't
18 remember the last time I have seen something
19 that it's going to be taken care of, it's
20 been ten years or more, fire trucks can't go
21 over that bridge. The route Engine 8, which
22 is on West Market Street, has to go down
23 Providence Square, out North Main Avenue to
24 the Pepsi plant down near Schiff's Foods,
25 come up the back way, down Charles Street,
63
1 down Rockwell Avenue to my house. Okay,
2 they show up, my house is on fire, my
3 children are trapped inside or my wife, God
4 forbid, that next engine company that's
5 coming to supply them water now, remember
6 that company has three to four minutes worth
7 of water, that next engine company that's
8 coming in is supposed to take the hydrant to
9 supply that engine and back up those people,
10 you want to guess where that engine is going
11 to come from if you close Engine 9 and
12 Engine 4? It's going to be Luzerne Street
13 in West Side and Petersburg Corners. If you
14 have ever driven through our city in the
15 middle of the day or even that distance it
16 could be two in the morning you are not
17 going to get there in a timely manner.
18 It's absolutely ridiculous to think of a
19 concept like that.
20 And, I mean, the mayor is one day
21 there is an article we are not closing
22 stations, well, we are closing stations.
23 Well, now we are going to do a quint, we're
24 not doing quints. It's time to put the
25 cards on the table and say where you going
64
1 with this and I agree with council.
2 MR. COURTRIGHT: Dave, could I ask
3 you one quick question, who came up with
4 this idea of the quint? Who is the expert
5 telling you this? I'd like to know where
6 this stuff is coming from?
7 MR. SCHREIBER: I have no idea. It
8 was presented, like I said, at a meeting. I
9 was there, I was present and so was Chief
10 Davis, Director Hayes, and Stu Renda. And
11 who? I mean, obviously, I don't think there
12 is anybody capable of coming up with that
13 type of concept and making those wholesale
14 changes to our whole response system.
15 MR. COURTRIGHT: They had to get it
16 from somewhere; right?
17 MR. SCHREIBER: I really don't -- I
18 think it's just trying to figure a way to
19 reduce the amount of persons, the amount of
20 personnel. I truly that's in my heart
21 that's what I believe because I have asked
22 that same question, where is this coming
23 from, you know, and nobody has given me an
24 answer. All I'm hearing is bits, parts. It
25 is an absolutely -- absolutely fool-hearted
65
1 to look at it from that point of view to
2 close those engine companies down, and don't
3 just take it from my point of view at the
4 north end, if you are in West Side it's
5 going to be the same thing, Engine 7 could
6 have the house right next to their station
7 over on Luzerne Street, the next two water
8 coming in is going to be South Side or
9 Petersburg with those two stations closed.
10 It's just crazy. It's crazy.
11 Now, you need to remember the cuts
12 in engine companies, Councilwoman Gatelli
13 talked about the petition drive, that
14 petition drive was done for Engine 13, which
15 is long gone.
16 MS. GATELLI: I know.
17 MR. SCHREIBER: We are down to Engine
18 2 back in South Side, that's it. South Side
19 is a huge area and in this city --
20 MS. GATELLI: Too big for just one.
21 MS. SCHREIBER: Pardon?
22 MS. GATELLI: Because we do Montage
23 now, too, with that truck.
24 MR. SCHREIBER: You have to realize,
25 our biggest building area in the city is on
66
1 the two mountains. Our footprint as a city
2 is getting wider and wider. If now there is
3 a need for coverage up in the East Mountain
4 and West Mountain more now than ever and to
5 go in an opposite direction and not take
6 that into consideration is just haphazard.
7 There is just too much at stake, and I'm not
8 trying to be alarmist here, but the last
9 time engine companies were closed we had
10 multiple fatalities. You show up, I mean,
11 they had it up near Strazerri's restaurant
12 with Engine 9 was closed last time, it was
13 about ten years ago. The crew that showed
14 up there you can only do a certain amount of
15 tasks. They had people hanging out of
16 windows, they're trying to put water on a
17 fire, you can only do one task.
18 It may make sense for a bean counter
19 or for an accountant to look at this and
20 say, "Here is how we can cut a few bodies,"
21 but it's absolutely our safety and more
22 importantly the public's safety that's at
23 risk. That's why those signs are out there.
24 That's why people need to educate
25 themselves. This is not an issue that can
67
1 be derived from shoot from the hip. It's
2 not political. There absolutely is a
3 scientific way to approach looking at it,
4 and I'm telling you this city is only
5 getting smaller. We still have the small
6 25 square miles and actually population is
7 going up.
8 MR. MCGOFF: Thank you, Mr.
9 Schreiber.
10 MS. EVANS: Mr. Schreiber, I just
11 want to ask you, as was stated earlier, we
12 did ask for the mayor's response on what he
13 is basing these decisions, and again, we did
14 not receive a response from him, however,
15 now I understand you met with Mr. Hayes.
16 MR. SCHREIBER: Correct.
17 MS. EVANS: Correct, and so
18 Mr. Courtright wants the letter directed to
19 Mr. Hayes, in the event that there is no
20 current independent study that has been
21 consulted in order to make these types of
22 decisions would you say that it would be
23 wise to commission a study then, an
24 independent study in terms of the fire
25 stations, the manpower in the City of
68
1 Scranton, and then wait for those results--
2 MR. SCHREIBER: Absolutely.
3 MS. EVANS: -- before anything would
4 be touched by people are who are not
5 professionals, trained professionals in
6 firefighting.
7 MR. SCHREIBER: Absolutely. I mean,
8 here we are, there's a statement made, I
9 believe it was yesterday that now they are
10 looking at we are ata 142 person fire
11 department, the mayor made the statement
12 130, which is in his right, that's the
13 Commonwealth order. We have no problems.
14 We know we are along for the ride no matter
15 what happens, but there truly is a safety
16 impact on these type of cuts, 130 people if
17 you go from 142 to 130, obviously, something
18 has to give. You are not going to -- to
19 make a statement nothing is going to close,
20 come on. Let's be honest. That's what we
21 need right now is honesty.
22 MS. EVANS: Thank you.
23 MR. MCGOFF: Thank you. Bill
24 Jackowitz.
25 MR. JACKOWITZ: Good evening,
69
1 Mr. President, Scranton City Council, Bill
2 Jackowitz, South Scranton resident and
3 member of the Taxpayers' Association. All
4 taxes are paid, two parking tickets were
5 paid, also.
6 ECTV you are doing a good job. Keep
7 showing council members at speakers are
8 speaking. Show both sides. Bionic, believe
9 it or not I care. The City of Scranton was
10 founded in 1866, now in 2009, after a
11 firefighter's death we waited for a safety
12 report to implement procedures that possibly
13 could have been prevented this death. This
14 is not the first Scranton firefighter to die
15 from electrocution. I quote Chief Davis,
16 "The department always had standard
17 procedures for around power lines, though
18 some of them were written down and some of
19 them weren't", that's a quote from the fire
20 chief. "Since Captain Robson's death the
21 department has put the procedures in
22 writing," he said.
23 What kind of leadership is this? No
24 wonder why 92 percent of the firefighters
25 quoted no confidence in the chief. Where
70
1 have the mayor, safety director and fire
2 chief been for the past seven years? For
3 that matter, where have they been for the
4 past 103 years? They sure have not been
5 protecting the firefighters and citizens of
6 Scranton. In my opinion this is a disgrace,
7 but more importantly, two Scranton
8 firefighters have lost their life since
9 1906, 103 years. Fourteen firefighters
10 fatalities duty-related. 1 March 1977,
11 Chauffeur Edward Poch, P-O-C-H,
12 electrocuted, aerial ladder, came in contact
13 with power line at the Chamberlin
14 Corporation. It happened before and nothing
15 was ever done to correct it.
16 Scranton City Council meetings are a
17 joke. Week after week the same ten people
18 come before council and ask questions. All
19 they ask for are honest, accurate answers.
20 For the most part, the answers never come.
21 Personally, I have asked 37 questions in the
22 last three and a half years. I have
23 received answers to five of these questions.
24 Three of the answers that I received have
25 been misleading and flat out wrong. I am
71
1 not rude. I am frustrated with the rudeness
2 of certain council members answering
3 citizens questions -- not answering
4 citizens' questions. I have been told that
5 I am sarcastic and rude. I have been called
6 out by name by council with no opportunity
7 to respond. I have been called names as I
8 walk away from the podium with no
9 opportunity to respond. That takes courage.
10 I have been interrupted as I am
11 trying to make a point, like I was last
12 week, trying to make a point. Last week it
13 appeared a council member was asleep.
14 Council members carry on sidebar
15 conversations as speakers are speaking and
16 they seem to be writing their
17 autobiographies. They surely are not
18 writing down the questions that are being
19 asked.
20 I have also been searched and made
21 to stand out in the cold to attend counsel
22 meetings. You may not agree with the
23 speakers or may not even like the speaker,
24 but as an elected official I feel you have
25 the obligation to at least listen to the
72
1 speakers. We are only speaking for five
2 minutes. If you as elected officials do not
3 want to attend weekly council meetings then
4 change the Home Rule Charter to monthly
5 meetings or just do not show up, you would
6 be paid anyways. Show some respect to the
7 speakers, at least pay attention, not
8 snicker, laugh and make silly faces. Do not
9 announce that citizens will have time to ask
10 questions and then take the vote before the
11 citizens are allowed to speak and talk back
12 to the speaker. Excuses are like blank,
13 everybody has one.
14 City council meetings are open to
15 the public which means that all citizens
16 have the right to attend these meetings and
17 speak about anything that deals with city
18 government, the state of the city, including
19 the economy, unemployment, the budget and
20 many more topics.
21 Believe it or not, the City of
22 Scranton has been distressed for 17 years.
23 Fire and police have not had a contract in
24 seven years. Taxes have been raised, fines
25 and penalties have been implemented by NCC.
73
1 They continue to make mistakes and cause
2 taxpayers undue hardship. Several people
3 have spoken to me about problems they have
4 occurring in the county. I explain that I
5 am not an elected official and I cannot
6 assist them they need to contact Council
7 Members McGoff, Fanucci and Gatelli. After
8 speaking with council members they contact
9 Mayor Doherty.
10 Why do we have a city council
11 anyways? Facts are facts. A firefighter
12 died because of inexperience, unqualified
13 leadership at the top of city government.
14 Now he wants to disband two engine
15 companies. The same leaders are making this
16 decision. No wonder why Northeastern
17 Pennsylvania has the problems. We have,
18 again, as I said, we have no leadership. We
19 only have nepotism. If you know somebody
20 you need not to know anything else.
21 Corruption update: Turnpike
22 commissioners, fired; judge's wife resigned
23 as clerk, $47,436 a year part-time clerk.
24 Qualifications do not matter, a recent quote
25 from the councilwoman. These signs say do
74
1 not vote, quit stealing DiBileo signs. This
2 is a sign of desperation.
3 MR. MCGOFF: Andy Sbaraglia.
4 MR. SBARAGLIA: Andy Sbaraglia,
5 Citizen of Scranton. Fellow Scrantonians, I
6 wouldn't necessarily say something on 7-A in
7 fact, I wasn't planning to, but you read a
8 very impressive letter. My question is why
9 does she need the money?
10 Okay, let's get on to it, you read
11 with the insurance, did anybody ever realize
12 why we are going back from this way all the
13 way back to January on the insurance? I did
14 ask that question last week, I was hoping we
15 had an answer.
16 MR. MCGOFF: Do you wish it now?
17 MR. SBARAGLIA: Oh, yeah, sure. Why
18 not?
19 MR. MCGOFF: It's your time.
20 MR. SBARAGLIA: That's okay.
21 MR. MCGOFF: I was told that they met
22 with Mr. Knowles, or with the Knowles
23 Associates whatever in December and went
24 through the needs that they had, the Knowles
25 then searches out vendors for the insurance
75
1 and that they only recently received back
2 the information from Knowles and that the
3 legislation was put together when the
4 information from Knowles and Associates was
5 given to them.
6 MR. SBARAGLIA: Can I assume we had
7 insurance coverage from January?
8 MR. MCGOFF: Yes, it was a carry over
9 from the prior year and/or subsequent to.
10 MR. SBARAGLIA: Leeway. Okay. It
11 sounds like a dumb way of doing, but I guess
12 that's the way they do it. Okay, now what I
13 want to talk about mainly is crime. I had
14 two signs stolen from my property, removed.
15 Now, as we all know freedom of expression is
16 very, very important to democracy. When you
17 got thugs running around doing things like
18 that it makes you wonder, are you going to
19 be safe to express yourself or is a rock
20 going to come through your window?
21 This is very important. It's the
22 heart of democracy. When your freedom of
23 expression is taken away from you by anyone
24 whether it's children, this, that or
25 whatever, but this is important because it
76
1 was concerted. I don't like concerted
2 efforts to take away rights from people to
3 express themselves, and this is the
4 important thing of democracy, when you lose
5 that you lose everything. When you go to
6 the poles are there going to be a group of
7 people out there saying you can't vote
8 because you don't -- I don't like how you
9 voted or how your sign was in front of your
10 house?
11 This is important. We must get
12 somebody to get these culprits. They must
13 be arrested and the maximum penalty should
14 be imposed on them because this is the
15 basics of all liberties. It's like freedom
16 of speech. When you take them away from
17 people you might as well be in a
18 dictatorship. When you start you start
19 small. If you were ever -- well, Mr. McGoff
20 was a history teacher, I'm sure you realize
21 how the Nazi's took control of Germany, I
22 lived through it and read about it and this
23 is one of the ways he did it, they took away
24 the people's right to speak and they took
25 away their right of expression.
77
1 These are basics and, like I say, I
2 would like to see you send a letter or all
3 of you really sit up there and condemn it.
4 Sit up there and say, "This is wrong. It
5 shouldn't be to know," and really that's it.
6 Show where you are when it comes to things
7 like this because you are all in the same
8 boat, what affects one person affects all of
9 us. I thank you.
10 MR. MCGOFF: Ozzie Quinn.
11 MR. QUINN: Ozzie Quinn, President
12 of the Scranton and Lackawanna County
13 Taxpayers' Association, Incorporated. Would
14 you hand these outs, please, to council and
15 to the solicitor? I just want to point out,
16 and I'm not going to dwell this, you can
17 vote on this, whatever you want to do, but
18 in the applicant's website she says that she
19 is she is an aromacologist, okay, and to be
20 an aromacologist you first have to become an
21 aromatherapist, and there are the
22 regulations, that's all I have to do with --
23 to say with it, okay? Now, we are going to
24 spend $25,000 we are going to give to this
25 woman and taxpayers' money?
78
1 MS. FANUCCI: It's a loan.
2 MR. QUINN: I see many loans turn
3 into grants here. You know, taxpayers'
4 money, people who have to pay, we saw
5 tonight that there are people not paying
6 their taxes in the City of Scranton. We are
7 paying our taxes, I'm paying my taxes, and
8 the mayor wants to cut out fire engines.
9 What are we going to be doing pretty soon to
10 pay our taxes? What are we going to get
11 from it? We have to pay for use of
12 ballfields, taking the garbage out, you
13 know, I just don't -- I don't understand it.
14 This is getting ridiculous. We have a debt
15 of $150 or $160 million, where are we going
16 and you want to pay $25 million for this
17 time of a program?
18 You know what, drive over on Third,
19 Fourth Avenue, Pierce, Lloyd, Faar, Dorothy
20 Street, see how nice those neighborhoods
21 are. You know why they are nice? They all
22 have nice sidewalks and curbs put in to
23 prior administrations to the Doherty
24 administration. The neighborhoods are
25 beautiful. Go to the other neighborhoods
79
1 that were not touched. It's ashame that we
2 are not getting what we are paying for in
3 taxes, and it's got to be stopped and,
4 please, I go don't want a fire engine trying
5 to find my home where I live, and they know
6 where I live, there is no doubt about it,
7 but if there is one fire engine and if that
8 driver got sick or something I'm not going
9 to wait 15 minutes for the other guy to
10 come. Please, get rid of that.
11 Mr. Courtright, you are in the right
12 direction. Thank you very much.
13 MR. MCGOFF: Bob Bolus.
14 MR. BOLUS: Good evening, Council.
15 Bob Bolus, Scranton. On 7-A, you know,
16 listening to what I heard here tonight long
17 resume and everything else I believe she
18 should be loaning the city money than the
19 other way around. I mean, you know, in all
20 honesty with that kind of a background and
21 that kind of an expansive program, you know,
22 I think it's shameful to come here and ask
23 taxpayers to pay your way at this point, and
24 I think she should have came here and spent
25 her five minutes just like each and every
80
1 one of us had to do. I think we should send
2 our letters to you, Mr. McGoff, and you
3 could read them and we could stay home and
4 watch.
5 On this here -- there is so much in
6 this city going on it's just utterly
7 ridiculous. Last night I was up at the
8 Dunmore council and, you know, the issue
9 came up about the fire department and about
10 volunteers, fire trucks getting to a fire.
11 Well, let me tell you, I'm a firefighter, a
12 volunteer firefighter in Throop, and I drive
13 the fire engine in Throop when I'm available
14 up in the town during the day along with
15 other have volunteers, and to see what this
16 city is trying to do in the size of this
17 city to stop and cut back engines to get --
18 that's your primary and they want to slack
19 off on it. You need water. That's what
20 puts out fires. That's what saves lives.
21 Go down Lackawanna Avenue, you have
22 one-way practically down there. You have
23 the road closing, it used to be two lanes,
24 try to get through the traffic. You know,
25 driving an engine and getting there or any
81
1 fire apparatus is not an easy task. People
2 are very ignorant today, they don't pay
3 attention to sirens, lights or anything else
4 that goes on. Now, we want to cut service
5 to the City of Scranton.
6 As Ozzie said, we have to pay a
7 garbage fee to take out our garbage. That
8 should have been in our taxes from day one,
9 which brings up a fee. That's a fee we are
10 paying. When I said put fees on KOZ's,
11 nonprofits, make them pay. That was
12 implemented, why aren't you implementing
13 something else and I have been asking for
14 years to do this. You know, it's time to
15 stop talking and start acting.
16 We have the sewer line, and I
17 mentioned this to Dunmore because they are
18 partnered with Scranton. We have had this
19 leachate line that I have talked about from
20 day one that the landfill runs their flow
21 through. Sure it's treated by the city's
22 sewer authority, however, the line comes
23 through Dunmore and Scranton, go after a
24 host community fee, get four or five bucks a
25 gallon for it. Start taking our debt down
82
1 by increasing this tax base and you ignoring
2 it. It's there. Only you could do it.
3 You know, whether the landfill
4 charges or gets charged they pass it on.
5 You go to the gas pump and the gas pumps
6 raise their price five cents, you don't
7 argue, you pay five cents a gallon, so what
8 are you waiting for? You are the people
9 that could do this. You know, this
10 administration has been negligent in a lot
11 of areas and, you know, you keep patronizing
12 them. If you stop and put your foot down on
13 them the mayor won't get away with half the
14 stuff he is doing because you, too, control
15 his money and as long as you give him cart
16 blanch out here we are never going to go out
17 of this mess, we are going to keep getting
18 deeper and deeper.
19 And it was not to see Marilyn here.
20 I have known her for many, many years, and
21 it's nice to see they actually trying to
22 find a solution to the problem, but where
23 was the administration, where were the prior
24 councils? This didn't happen overnight and,
25 you know, we always turn a blind eye in the
83
1 City of Scranton and who does it go back to
2 the senior citizens, the taxpayers in the
3 city that are ultimately paying this price.
4 You know, take the businesses. We
5 cut fire protection, we cut services,
6 everybody is paying to be in the City of
7 Scranton but who are they paying? What are
8 we getting into return for it? Look at our
9 roads, look at the condition in the city and
10 we are in the spotlight of the nation, and
11 it just makes you sit here and really,
12 really wonder like what's really been going
13 on here.
14 You know, we can sit and talk and as
15 they've said we come here before council, I
16 have been coming here for many years, and I
17 don't see any changes happening. I see a
18 lot of talk, we want to build a library in
19 South Side, buy a bank building that's
20 falling down and pay millions and millions
21 of dollars. What are we going to do with
22 the library we have here in Scranton, who
23 gets that for free?
24 You know, these are assets. They
25 are not council's, they are not the
84
1 administration, past, present or future.
2 You need to sit here and pay attention to
3 the future of this city, and we are not
4 doing that. We are ignoring it all for all
5 the egos out there. For all the reasons
6 that people want to take advantage of the
7 people in this city.
8 You know, they say there is a
9 recession, Scranton stays the same, but look
10 at all of the houses being bought up in the
11 city. They are not being bought by
12 Scrantonians, they are being bought from
13 people all over the country. We are the
14 laughing stock of the nation because we are
15 giving our city away and it's all because of
16 what's happening this city from elected
17 officials who are ignoring the taxpayers in
18 the city. I think we got to stop and draw
19 the line in the sand now. Thank you.
20 MR. MCGOFF: David Dwyer.
21 MR. MURPHY: I'm Mike Murphy, too.
22 MR. DWYER: Good evening, members of
23 council, council staff and citizens. I'm
24 here to share with you, the Community
25 Vegetable Gardens program that we are
85
1 implementing through the county. Now, we
2 have 20 sites that we have selected to grow
3 fresh fruits and vegetables to donate the
4 harvest to the local food pantries and to
5 the soup kitchen. You know, the purposes of
6 the community garden is not necessarily just
7 to gro